AustLit

'On a Barbarous Coast is an alternative retelling of Captain James Cook's story co-written by Craig Cormick and Harold Ludwick in the tradition of imagined histories.

'We were becoming the wild things we most feared, but could not see it at the time.

'On a night of raging winds and rain, Captain Cook's Endeavour lies splintered on a coral reef off the coast of far north Australia. A small disparate band of survivors, fracturing already, huddle on the shore of this strange land - their pitiful salvage scant protection from the dangers of the unknown creatures and natives that live here.

'Watching these mysterious white beings, the Guugu Yimidhirr people cannot decide if they are ancestor spirits to be welcomed - or hostile spirits to be speared. One headstrong young boy, Garrgiil, determines to do more than watch and to be the one to find out what exactly they are.

'Fierce, intriguing and thoughtful, On a Barbarous Coast is the story of a past and future that might have been.

''Australia's "origin" story brilliantly re-imagined, in which Indigenous Australians rightfully assume their central place.' Susan Johnson, author of The Broken Book' (Publication summary)

'This story begins with a murder. A German internee is found dead inside a civilian internment camp during World War One, and one young internee, Arno Friedrich, determines to find the killer. But the more he probes into the lives of his fellow internees the more he discovers that little within the old stone prison is as he had imagined. He finds that the Germanic facades and fantasies the men construct hide secrets within secrets. And a killer.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It’s a fact not yet universally acknowledged, that everybody should at some point in their lives attempt to follow in the footsteps of the explorers Hume and Hovell down the Hume Highway, preferably in the company of Captain Cook, Henry Lawson, Caroline Chisholm and Ned Kelly. Backseat Drivers is a hilarious and biting satire on the intersection and byways of the past, the present and the future.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'We find Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson walking along a busy road in London, going against the flow of the many faces in the street, muttering to each other like a pair of homeless crazies. They have both come to London to escape the pain of a broken heart, and the men, rivals in so many things, have discovered that they have shared the same mistress! Yet if either expected to find some consolation in the other’s suffering, they have instead found it exacerbates their own. (Introduction)

'Hi. My name is Valdur and I’m a Viking. We’ll, I hope to be a real Viking one day. I’m still a child actually. But I do get to roam the seas on my father’s ship. Until, that is, he was kidnapped by his arch-enemy, the Goth pirate Germanicus Bottom. So now, by Odin’s smelly socks, I have to fight Romans, sea monsters and the Pirate Goths to rescue him. Luckily I have my dragon-dog Ragna with me though. And we are all ghosts. Did I mention that?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

A take on the story of Peter Pan, which unpacks some disturbing motivations on the part of the titular character.

'The Floating City is in turmoil. The magical seers who protect it are being killed by fearsome Djinn that rise out of the canals at night. Members of the city’s Council of Ten are being assassinated by masked fanatics. Refugee ships are arriving, bringing plague. Othmen spies are infiltrating everywhere. New power blocks are battling for control of the city.

'And the three Montecchi daughters, Giuliette, Disdemona and Isabella, are struggling with love and loss – and trying to write their own destinies. And moving amongst them all is the mysterious and deadly Shadow Master, who seems to be directing everyone like players in a game. But some things in this game may be beyond even his control.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In a land riven with plague, in the infamous Walled City, two families vie for control – the Medicis with their genius inventor Leonardo; the Lorraines with Galileo, the most brilliant alchemist of his generation.

'And when two star-crossed lovers, one from either house, threaten the status quo, a third, shadowy power – one that forever seems a step ahead of all of the familial warring – plots and schemes, and bides its time, ready for the moment to attack…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The year is 1982 and Adolf Hitler has been living anonymously on the south coast of New South Wales for almost thirty years, waging small wars with his neighbours and the local council. Until one day, during the height of the Falklands War, his old comrade Martin Bormann comes to visit, bearing a secret that will affect both their destinies. ' (Publication summary)

'Benji is offered the chance of his dreams – to skip school and become a pirate for a day. But after battling sea monsters and searching for haunted buried treasure, he discovers that being a good pirate requires just as much learning as school.' (Publication summary)